Hello, valued friends. Today marks the 20th anniversary of deke.com. Well, not actually today. I started this site on June 22, 1997. Which makes it somewhat older than 20 years. But, really, it doesn’t look a day over 19.

In the early days, it was dekemc.com. (Which still works, FWLIW.) I bought deke.com from the Toronto chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon, aka “The Dekes,” back in 2004. I was never a Deke in that sense, but I’ve been a Deke since I was born. And owning a four-letter URL that spells out your name, that’s the modern equivalent of a dream come true.

Which is why I’m so proud that we’ve kept this thing going. Not necessarily every day, or every other day, but definitely every so often. And every blue moon, it has rocked.

Never more so than today. Because today, we bring you a new site.

Here are the top ten advantages to our new site.

We’ve enhanced the look-and-feel! (I added the exclamation point b/c everyone says that. Oy, c’mon. Adobe claims that their new and wildly buggy Illustrator/InDesign charred-and-snub-pointed Pen tool is an enhancement. It looks like a cloven goat’s hoof.) We didn’t do that because, deke.com is great, and what you’re about to see is some badass greatness. Just look at the top of this post. Or this one:

Search results are now visual, meaning you get to see thumbnails from the projects and experiments that match your results. Search for something right now. (Or better yet, click on a tag of something you like to see similarly tagged items.) If it isn’t visual, your money back!

Speaking of visual, which of course we should be given our subject area, there are bigger and better graphics throughout the site. Which is to say, the graphics are now BIGGER and BETTER! Aren’t capital letters fun? Just look at ’em. VISUAL exclamations!

Members can now comment, ask questions, and possibly even expect responses. You know those sites where all these thoughtful people have really great questions, but the answers are snotty, or inane, or just plain wrong? That’s what we DON’T want to be. We want people to ask really great questions, and then we—or our trusted member friends—offer awesome answers. We want deke.com to = credibility.

That’s not all. As of today, members can include JPEG and PNG images in comments, allowing you to add visuals to your questions or share your latest creations. (We reserve the right to review all image submissions, and we will. So no floppy organs, external or internal.)

Members can add profile pictures and links, opening up new avenues of personal expression and information sharing. (So again, no pancreases or other dangling organs.)

Not that you give two shits about this one, but listen up! As of today, we have converted our platform from Drupal to ExpressionEngine, which nobody’s heard of which is why it’s so great. Your typical blogger uses WordPress. Why not me? Because I’m hella G. I use ExpressionEngine. Also, it’s going to help us get things done around here.

This means we have a better backend. And what the hell does that mean? It means we have cute, wiggly butts. It also means my team and I can post more often and with more flexibility and without our formerly beloved but technologically outdated old site. This gives us joy we can pass directly on to you in the form of being more engaged ourselves. Cute butts wiggling in mutual happiness.

We can now share more complementary content from LinkedIn Learning. That’s an ongoing thing. We’re still sorting it out. But as we know more, we’ll let you know.

We can share files with members, including weekly exercise files for Deke’s Techniques. And possibly more.

I gotta say this one not-so-great-but-necessary thing: Are you a member since the early days? If the answer is yes, you’ll have to make a new account. I know, it’s a pain, but there was a good reason. We knew your usernames, but not your passwords. We tried a bunch of options, but eventually decided: new site, new accounts, same awesomeness.

Welcome to this giant, steaming, beautiful pile of awesomeness. All my virtual love,